Newer residents protest water law

Friday, July 7, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Dozens of Nevada and Utah residents are challenging a state law that bars them from participating in hearings on the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plan to pump rural Nevada ground water to Las Vegas.

They are petitioning the state engineer for inclusion in the September hearings about plans to take more than 91,000 acre-feet of water from the Spring Valley in White Pine County. The transfer is part of a $2 billion plan to bolster Las Vegas' water-resource portfolio with ground water from rural White Pine, Lincoln and Clark counties.

Nevada law bars any new protests to the dozens of applications filed in 1989. Opponents of the Water Authority's plans say state law robs new residents and others of the chance to protect their rights.

The petition will be filed today, and is a required step before a lawsuit can be filed.

"It's a basic question of whether people in the United States have a right to protect their property," said Bob Fulkerson, director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, an advocacy group opposed to the Water Authority's plans. "It's a sacred right."

The petition alleges that property owners and others who rely on local ground water have been denied due process because they acquired water rights after 1989. Some petitioners include heirs to original protesters who have since died, residents not old enough to file protests in 1989, and 1989 protesters who were not notified about upcoming hearings.

Matt Kenna, a lawyer with the Western Environmental Law Center, is representing a diverse group of protesters. He said the state engineer, who will decide how much water the authority can take, needs to open up the process: "We are filing (this petition) to ensure that the people of rural eastern Nevada and western Utah affected by SNWA's unprecedented attempt to acquire all the remaining water where they live are given an opportunity to be heard."

A number of "new" residents of the Spring and Snake valleys - including Terry Marasco, owner of a motel in the tiny Nevada town of Baker - cannot participate because they were not around to file protests 17 years ago. Marasco is concerned about the negative effects on his business, which relies on tourism, hunting and fishing.

"I'm being shut out of the process simply because I wasn't around 16 years ago," he said. "This is unfair."

Former State Engineer Hugh Ricci, who retired last month, set aside three weeks in September for hearings on the Spring Valley applications. He said in March that Nevada is clear about who can protest and the time frame for filing a protest.

New State Engineer Tracy Taylor echoed Ricci: "We've addressed that. It is defined by statute."

In the absence of other legislation, opponents of the Water Authority's applications would have had to register complaints with the state engineer in 1989 or they would have no formal standing in the upcoming hearing, Taylor said.

The Legislature considered changing the law to allow other protests of the Water Authority applications. The Interim Committee on Water Resources included a proposed amendment on its final agenda two weeks ago, but it died when none of the committee's eight members moved to consider it.

Kenna and other Water Authority opponents asked the authority to join them in petitioning the state engineer to reopen the protest process.

"If (the Water Authority) was truly concerned about the citizens they will impact and the water resources they would take, they would want to join us," said petitioner Donald Duff, a property owner in eastern Nevada and president of the Great Basin chapter of Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group.

The Water Authority, however, is likely to decline.

"Nevada law is very clear An exception in this case doesn't seem warranted because there are already numerous protestants who will undoubtedly raise every conceivable issue," said J.C. Davis, a Water Authority spokesman.

"Adding protests would do nothing more than delay and extend the hearings, while the content of those protests would likely duplicate existing objections."